PLX Devices Wideband O2 install
11-01-2003, 08:59 AM
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PLX Devices Wideband O2 install
Okay so I went ahead and installed my new PLX Wideband O2 yesterday. I snapped some pics and thought I would do a quick write up.
Okay so here goes...
They come with a pretty straightforward install procedure. And the device is pretty simple. I mean, you hook up ground, power, install the new O2 sensor, run all your cables and you're done. But I did have to do a little digging to find out how to fool the ECU from thinking there was not an open in the coil wires signal.
Here is what you should have to start, the Autometer converter of course is optional.
1. Figure out where you want to mount everything. If installing with a standalone system, or you plan on getting one, they recommend putting your ground wires as close as possible, which makes perfect sense. So pick a good spot where you can achieve this goal. I plan on using a VAFC in the future, and it will be mounted in my cup holder position, so I mounted the box to the metal frame with 2 tie wraps as you can see in this picture.
2. I also bought the PLX Autometer gauge converter, which turns your A/F gauge into a wideband display. Like this....
So I also had to figure out where to mount this little box. It's not that big, so it's fairly easy to find a place. I used tie wraps once again, to secure it just on the other side of where your gauge bezel mounts in the dash. As seen here in this pic.
This is both devices mounted and ready to go.
3. Now that you have your boxes mounted and your ready to go, it's time to ground them out. I ran all my ground wires from all 3 devices to the same point. There is a little hole in the metal frame behind the cup holder mounting position. I crimped all 3 wires into a holder and then used a small bolt and lock washers to secure it to the frame.
4. Now you can connect your power wires. You need a 12v KEYED supply. Meaning it's only on when you turn the key on. Now since I mounted mine where I did, I looked up and found my A/C controls power supply cable. It's a large blue\ blk stripped wire that runs up to the A/C controls right there in the center of the car. There is a Junction Connector that it passes through, and you can just tap it off from either side of this. I used this, for 2 reasons. ItÂ’s a large wire that I know is producing a very stable and reliable 12v signal, and I have no A/C, so I will not be drawing power from this for any other reason. If you have A/c, I would recommend using the noise filtering capacitors that they include in the kit for your power wires, just to be safe that you are still getting a good 12V signals with no electrical noise. After all, this is a wideband O2; you want it to be a clean, clean signal.
5. Once you have ground and power, let's move onto the signal wires. Now I ran the White wire from the PLX Autometer converter device, your wideband output signal (0V - 5V), over to the actual O2 controller box, cut the one short coming out of the controller, and soldered the 2 connections together. No worries on matching colors. White to white.
6. Once you have that all taken car of, now it's time to move to the Purple and Violet wires coming off your A/F gauge and the Converter box. These 2 should be cut fairly short, and then soldered together. The box and the A/F gauge are fairly close together, so there was no routing of any cables or anything difficult about this.
7. Okay. So now it's time to tap that new low voltage narrowband (Grey wire from PLX controller box) to your ECU. Unplug the ECU and locate the 16P connector. Connector D in the Helms manual. Locate the large white wire going into pin 7 on the clip.
With the clip on top, and looking at it from the wire side of the terminal, it is the wire that is on the 2nd row, 2nd wire over. It is a fairly large White wire, and if I remember correctly, the only white wire going into the connector.
***NOTE***
I have a 98 Ex, and I used the Helms for a Si. There was nothing in it to state that this wire was the same between the 2 models, but I checked continuity between the stock harness and the plug to make sure this was correct. It is. It should be the same from all 6th gen Civics at the minimum.
Cut this wire, but please remember to leave yourself something to tap back into in case you ever remove this wideband O2. Meaning, don't cut the wire off right at the plug. A good rule of thumb I play by, leave at least 3 inches behind to re-tap later if needed.
Now I also have an OBD-II to OBD-I converter harness, so I just cut this instead of my stock harness. But remember, to locate the correct wire on the harness still.
Solder this connection and your done.
8. Now it's time to get dirty. Crawl under your car and remove your stock O2 sensor. Then install the new Bosch LSU4.2 Wideband sensor.
9. Route your cables however you would like. Connect the wire harness provided by PLX to the O2 Sensor and then route it through he firewall.
I used a slightly diff method. The wire coming off the sensor is quite long. So I ran it up and over the rear cross member, reached up from near my cat and grabbed a hold of it. I used a few tie wraps here and there to make sure it was secure and not bouncing al around. I also made sure the connector was physically behind **** so that water and dirt cannot get to it as easily as in the open space down there. I then ran the O2 wire harness into the cabin of the car using the OLD secondary O2 sensor hole above the cat. Being OBD-I now, I only have a primary after all. This was a good chance for me to get rid of the jumper harness that Honda has in there for connecting the Secondary O2. Now this exit hole is right under the carpet near the heater vents in the center console area under the dash. Perfect spot, considering my Controller box is mounted right there.
Connect your connector from the Controller box and this harness together and your done.
10. THIS IS NOT IN THE PLX PROCEDURE FOR NORMAL USE. ONLY FOR INTERGRATION WITH A STANDALONE EMS.
Now you need to make a resistor jumper for the stock Coil wire (+) and (-) wires. I found in the instructions where they mention if hooking up to a Hondata or AEM system that you need to put a 1K-Ohm Resistor in this spot. (1K Ohm, 5% tolerance, 1/4 Watt power capabilities) These can be purchased at your local radio shack. I know how to read resistors and such, so I stole one off a scrap motherboard I had lying around, so I didn't need to make this trip. Good thing, cause it was about 12 midnight when I made this discovery that I needed this.
Take the resistor and solder it to 2 short pieces of wire. Take your old O2 sensor and cut the connector off of it. Remember, leave yourself something to solder to, cause we are using this connector. There should be 4 wires. 1 white, 1 Green, and 2 Black. Cut all the wires the same length. Then fold the white and green ones over in half and tie wrap to themselves. Leaving just the 2 black wires running straight out. Take your resistor that you have and solder it to these 2 black wires. This is your jumper plug. Cover/ wrap this new little harness thing nicely and plug it back into the stock engine harness position that your PRIMARY O2 was previously plugged into. Now you have to jumper the (+) and (-) Coil wires. This will fool the ECU into thinking the circuit is still there and not throw a CODE 41 CEL when you start the car.
Here is what mine looked like.
This is it installed in the Engine.
11. Now double-check all your connections. Make sure grounds are good. Power is good, and that you have connected everything up. It's time for a test.
12. RESET YOUR ECU!!!!!!!
13. Start the car and check for a CEL. If you get nothing, then you did everything correctly. If you are like me, you are very curious and didn't actually solder all your connections on the first go around. This way you can monitor your outputs from the PLX Controller box. Check the White wire, you should have anywhere from 0v - 5V output. Depending on car's condition and what not, it should read anywhere from 2.0 - 4.0 when first starting. Then come down as it warms up.
Also check the Grey wire output Voltage going to your ECU. It should read .1V - .9V or thereabouts. This is your narrowband output voltage that the ECU needs to read to run your fuel maps and what not in a Closed Loop mode.
If either of these is not producing an output, make sure the power to your Controller box is good. If you got the M-300 then you should have a visual display as well. Also check the ground to be sure it is good.
Now check the output from the Autometer Converter device. On the Orange or Violet line (they connect together remember) there should be a low .1V - .9V reading as well going into your A/F gauge, and your gauge should be lit something like this....
I just started the car, so naturally it's rich. After it warms up, it drops down a few LED's to almost perfect Stoich conditions. Now I can properly adjust my Fuel Pressure and get a better Stoich condition.
Here is a sample of it working while the car is running and pressing on the throttle. Much nicer than the typical A/F gauge indications.
Right Click, Save Target As PLEASE!!! I have no bandwidth with Comcast!!
Okay, so now you are done. Re-install all your plastic panels and clean up your mess you dirty little bastard.
Enjoy!!
Okay so here goes...
They come with a pretty straightforward install procedure. And the device is pretty simple. I mean, you hook up ground, power, install the new O2 sensor, run all your cables and you're done. But I did have to do a little digging to find out how to fool the ECU from thinking there was not an open in the coil wires signal.
Here is what you should have to start, the Autometer converter of course is optional.
1. Figure out where you want to mount everything. If installing with a standalone system, or you plan on getting one, they recommend putting your ground wires as close as possible, which makes perfect sense. So pick a good spot where you can achieve this goal. I plan on using a VAFC in the future, and it will be mounted in my cup holder position, so I mounted the box to the metal frame with 2 tie wraps as you can see in this picture.
2. I also bought the PLX Autometer gauge converter, which turns your A/F gauge into a wideband display. Like this....
So I also had to figure out where to mount this little box. It's not that big, so it's fairly easy to find a place. I used tie wraps once again, to secure it just on the other side of where your gauge bezel mounts in the dash. As seen here in this pic.
This is both devices mounted and ready to go.
3. Now that you have your boxes mounted and your ready to go, it's time to ground them out. I ran all my ground wires from all 3 devices to the same point. There is a little hole in the metal frame behind the cup holder mounting position. I crimped all 3 wires into a holder and then used a small bolt and lock washers to secure it to the frame.
4. Now you can connect your power wires. You need a 12v KEYED supply. Meaning it's only on when you turn the key on. Now since I mounted mine where I did, I looked up and found my A/C controls power supply cable. It's a large blue\ blk stripped wire that runs up to the A/C controls right there in the center of the car. There is a Junction Connector that it passes through, and you can just tap it off from either side of this. I used this, for 2 reasons. ItÂ’s a large wire that I know is producing a very stable and reliable 12v signal, and I have no A/C, so I will not be drawing power from this for any other reason. If you have A/c, I would recommend using the noise filtering capacitors that they include in the kit for your power wires, just to be safe that you are still getting a good 12V signals with no electrical noise. After all, this is a wideband O2; you want it to be a clean, clean signal.
5. Once you have ground and power, let's move onto the signal wires. Now I ran the White wire from the PLX Autometer converter device, your wideband output signal (0V - 5V), over to the actual O2 controller box, cut the one short coming out of the controller, and soldered the 2 connections together. No worries on matching colors. White to white.
6. Once you have that all taken car of, now it's time to move to the Purple and Violet wires coming off your A/F gauge and the Converter box. These 2 should be cut fairly short, and then soldered together. The box and the A/F gauge are fairly close together, so there was no routing of any cables or anything difficult about this.
7. Okay. So now it's time to tap that new low voltage narrowband (Grey wire from PLX controller box) to your ECU. Unplug the ECU and locate the 16P connector. Connector D in the Helms manual. Locate the large white wire going into pin 7 on the clip.
With the clip on top, and looking at it from the wire side of the terminal, it is the wire that is on the 2nd row, 2nd wire over. It is a fairly large White wire, and if I remember correctly, the only white wire going into the connector.
***NOTE***
I have a 98 Ex, and I used the Helms for a Si. There was nothing in it to state that this wire was the same between the 2 models, but I checked continuity between the stock harness and the plug to make sure this was correct. It is. It should be the same from all 6th gen Civics at the minimum.
Cut this wire, but please remember to leave yourself something to tap back into in case you ever remove this wideband O2. Meaning, don't cut the wire off right at the plug. A good rule of thumb I play by, leave at least 3 inches behind to re-tap later if needed.
Now I also have an OBD-II to OBD-I converter harness, so I just cut this instead of my stock harness. But remember, to locate the correct wire on the harness still.
Solder this connection and your done.
8. Now it's time to get dirty. Crawl under your car and remove your stock O2 sensor. Then install the new Bosch LSU4.2 Wideband sensor.
9. Route your cables however you would like. Connect the wire harness provided by PLX to the O2 Sensor and then route it through he firewall.
I used a slightly diff method. The wire coming off the sensor is quite long. So I ran it up and over the rear cross member, reached up from near my cat and grabbed a hold of it. I used a few tie wraps here and there to make sure it was secure and not bouncing al around. I also made sure the connector was physically behind **** so that water and dirt cannot get to it as easily as in the open space down there. I then ran the O2 wire harness into the cabin of the car using the OLD secondary O2 sensor hole above the cat. Being OBD-I now, I only have a primary after all. This was a good chance for me to get rid of the jumper harness that Honda has in there for connecting the Secondary O2. Now this exit hole is right under the carpet near the heater vents in the center console area under the dash. Perfect spot, considering my Controller box is mounted right there.
Connect your connector from the Controller box and this harness together and your done.
10. THIS IS NOT IN THE PLX PROCEDURE FOR NORMAL USE. ONLY FOR INTERGRATION WITH A STANDALONE EMS.
Now you need to make a resistor jumper for the stock Coil wire (+) and (-) wires. I found in the instructions where they mention if hooking up to a Hondata or AEM system that you need to put a 1K-Ohm Resistor in this spot. (1K Ohm, 5% tolerance, 1/4 Watt power capabilities) These can be purchased at your local radio shack. I know how to read resistors and such, so I stole one off a scrap motherboard I had lying around, so I didn't need to make this trip. Good thing, cause it was about 12 midnight when I made this discovery that I needed this.
Take the resistor and solder it to 2 short pieces of wire. Take your old O2 sensor and cut the connector off of it. Remember, leave yourself something to solder to, cause we are using this connector. There should be 4 wires. 1 white, 1 Green, and 2 Black. Cut all the wires the same length. Then fold the white and green ones over in half and tie wrap to themselves. Leaving just the 2 black wires running straight out. Take your resistor that you have and solder it to these 2 black wires. This is your jumper plug. Cover/ wrap this new little harness thing nicely and plug it back into the stock engine harness position that your PRIMARY O2 was previously plugged into. Now you have to jumper the (+) and (-) Coil wires. This will fool the ECU into thinking the circuit is still there and not throw a CODE 41 CEL when you start the car.
Here is what mine looked like.
This is it installed in the Engine.
11. Now double-check all your connections. Make sure grounds are good. Power is good, and that you have connected everything up. It's time for a test.
12. RESET YOUR ECU!!!!!!!
13. Start the car and check for a CEL. If you get nothing, then you did everything correctly. If you are like me, you are very curious and didn't actually solder all your connections on the first go around. This way you can monitor your outputs from the PLX Controller box. Check the White wire, you should have anywhere from 0v - 5V output. Depending on car's condition and what not, it should read anywhere from 2.0 - 4.0 when first starting. Then come down as it warms up.
Also check the Grey wire output Voltage going to your ECU. It should read .1V - .9V or thereabouts. This is your narrowband output voltage that the ECU needs to read to run your fuel maps and what not in a Closed Loop mode.
If either of these is not producing an output, make sure the power to your Controller box is good. If you got the M-300 then you should have a visual display as well. Also check the ground to be sure it is good.
Now check the output from the Autometer Converter device. On the Orange or Violet line (they connect together remember) there should be a low .1V - .9V reading as well going into your A/F gauge, and your gauge should be lit something like this....
I just started the car, so naturally it's rich. After it warms up, it drops down a few LED's to almost perfect Stoich conditions. Now I can properly adjust my Fuel Pressure and get a better Stoich condition.
Here is a sample of it working while the car is running and pressing on the throttle. Much nicer than the typical A/F gauge indications.
Right Click, Save Target As PLEASE!!! I have no bandwidth with Comcast!!
Okay, so now you are done. Re-install all your plastic panels and clean up your mess you dirty little bastard.
Enjoy!!
01-28-2005, 08:11 AM
#4
Honda-Tech Member
Re: PLX Devices Wideband O2 install (fipracing_com)
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ExVtec »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Good Writeup...minus the RED X's.....
</TD></TR></TABLE>
</TD></TR></TABLE>
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